George William Russell Quotes

“Our hearts were drunk with a beauty Our eyes could never see.”

— George William Russell

Love and hate have a magical transforming power. They are the great soul changers. We grow through their exercise into the likeness of what we contemplate.

— George William Russell

It is true the orator may make a myriad replica of his own passion out of those who listen to him. But that does not prove he is right or they are not fools.

— George William Russell

“Forgive me, Spirit of my spirit, for this, that I have found it easier to read the mystery told in tears and understood Thee better in sorrow than in joy.”

— George William Russell

“By intensity of hatred, nations create in themselves the character that they imagine in their enemies. Hence it comes that all passionate conflicts result in an interchange of characteristics. We might say with truth, those who hate open a door by which their enemies enter and make their own the secret places of the heart.”

— George William Russell

“We may fight against what is wrong, but if we allow ourselves to hate, that is to insure our spiritual defeat and our likeness to what we hate.”

— George William Russell

“Ah, to think how thin the veil that lies Between the pain of hell and Paradise.”

— George William Russell

“We dwell in the house of the body, but its perfection and intricate life are the work of a wisdom which never relaxes dominion over a single cell.”

— George William Russell

“Twilight, a timid, fawn, went glimmering by, and Night, the dark-blue hunter, followed fast.”

— George William Russell

“Seek on earth what you have found in heaven.”

— George William Russell

When steam first began to pump and wheels go round at so many revolutions per minute, what are called business habits were intended to make the life of man run in harmony with the steam engine, and his movement rival the train in punctuality.

— George William Russell

“The world can only be free when men are content in themselves and each draws from his own fountain.”

— George William Russell

“We have the universe to roam in in imagination. It is our virtue to be infinitely varied. The worst tyranny is uniformity.”

— George William Russell

After the spiritual powers, there is no thing in the world more unconquerable than the spirit of nationality. The spirit of nationality in Ireland will persist even though the mightiest of material powers be its neighbor.

— George William Russell

The wind from the Kingdom of Heaven has blown all over the world, and shall blow for centuries yet.

— George William Russell

“I lay this down as a fundamental proposition, which I do not think will be denied, that whoever controls the taxation and trade policy of a country controls its destiny and the entire character of its civilization.”

— George William Russell

“The relation of landlord and tenant is not an ideal one, but any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy which qualifies life for immortality.”

— George William Russell

“You can't evoke great spirits and eat plums at the same time.”

— George William Russell

“The victors in great wars have always been spiritually defeated by the conquered.”

— George William Russell

“We have control over the work of our hands, but little over the working of the soul. But yet we must yield to it, for without it we have nothing.”

— George William Russell

“Nothing exasperates the spirit in man more than power which seems unconquerable and which makes impotent all protest.”

— George William Russell

“We realise that natural aptitudes are not interchangeable, and each person must, of biological or spiritual necessity, practise the art for which he is fitted.”

— George William Russell

“In the lost boyhood of Judas, Christ was betrayed.”

— George William Russell

“Reason, alas, does not remove mountains. It only tries to walk around them, and see what is on the other side.”

— George William Russell

“Whiskey: a torchligh procession marching down your throat.”

— George William Russell

No leader, however great a personality he may be, is as important to a people as their own intellectual development.

— George William Russell

“We must pass like smoke or live within the spirit's fire;
For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return
If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire,
As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn.”

— George William Russell

“There is a law in human nature which draws us to like what we passionately condemn.”

— George William Russell

We are tired who follow after fantasy and truth that flies: You with only look and laughter stain our hearts with richest dyes.

— George William Russell

People tell me that the countryside must always be stupid and backward, and I get angry, as if it were said that only townspeople had immortal souls, and that it was only in the city that the flame of divinity breathed into the first men had an unobscured glow.

— George William Russell